Experimental investigation on the flow around a circular cylinder with upstream splitter plate

The splitter plate has been widely applied in controlling the flow around a circular cylinder due to its advantages of being easy to install and simplicity. The experiment was conducted with particle image velocimetry to investigate the control effect of the upstream splitter plate. It is found that, for the rigid plate case, the variation in drag coefficient with Re is similar to the bare cylinder case, and the critical Re for the shear layer instability beginning to manifest is 1860. Meanwhile, with the increase in Re or the length of the plate, the flexible splitter plate will bend to one side due to the influence of the flow, which increases the drag coefficient of the circular cylinder in comparison with the rigid plate case tested.